Thanks. I am suspecting the water jet breaker. After 10 or 15 seconds, I get paltry amounts out of those four holes, and sometimes it only comes out of one or two. It should be gushing.

I just need to figure out a way to make a spanner wrench. Mine does not have a slot. It's four 1/8 (approx) holes on about an 1-1/2" center. It's probably a special tool that fits up there and unscrews it.

The only bothersome part is that with the cover to the "infusion device cap" off, I don't get much water out of there either. I'm getting close. I want to smell the coffee!

Does your water jet breaker look like this (rightmost)?



If so, I need to read more carefully next time. That's the stock water jet breaker / pod adapter for my machine, La Valentina. While it's really helpful to have the special tool you mentioned, I coaxed mine out by gently tapping a cutoff nail inserted in one of the holes. Later I replaced it with the standard E61 dispersion screen.

PS: If you removed the big bolt on the side of the group capping off chamber 14 and water didn't gush out, you need to look higher.


E61 patent diagram - modern versions are almost identical

In the meantime....I applied a fine wire to the four holes and also used some compressed air to shake things up and now get a nice flow--probably in the neighborhood of 1.5 cc/sec at zero pressure.

I'll call this patient "stable" and won't let 'er out of the ICU until I can completely disassemble the group head, but will call this a success.

Threw some coffee in the portafilter and for the first time ever, pulled a double with blonding right at 30 seconds. Not much for taste, because the grind was not fresh, but I am on my way to the hard part now....learning how to do this (make coffee that is).

Thanks for all the help and ideas.

HB, thanks for the tip about the nail. I should have been able to figure that out. I used a center punch and got the water jet breaker (which looks like the big one in your picture) off and there was a lot of nasty stuff in there. Not so much like the sand I found elsewhere in the machine, but just "coffee sludge".

I think now that the entire water path has been cleaned, I need to focus on getting all the old coffee stuff off the grouphead.

Thanks again.

Good to hear you're up and running. By the way, if you haven't done so already, check out the Buyer's Guide to La Valentina. It's got a lot in common with your machine.

For future reference, I retitled this thread to match the actual topic. Returning to your original question, the thread roasters poll nominations is a good place for coffee recommendations.